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Not sure if you meant largest by size or by number of people, we decided to see if we could find the largest in both, since we suspected that there might be two different answers. We didn't search on "country," (we didn't want country music!), but instead we decided to browse through Yahoo!'s Geography > Country Profiles category. We visited the 1999 edition of the CIA World Factbook, where we found information on the people, geography, government, and economy of every country in the world. But alas, if there was a section that ranks countries by size, population, wealth, or other statistics, we couldn't find it. Next we checked the Global Statistics site, a compilation of data about countries of the world, and clicked on a link called Charts. The first chart displayed a list of the forty countries with the largest populations: Canada came in at number 35. In first place was China, with almost 1.25 billion people, then came India with just over a billion. The next chart we looked at displayed the largest countries in the world based on area: Here, Canada was in the number-two spot, with nearly 10 million square kilometers of area, just ahead of the U nited States, but still well behind Russia's 17-million-square-kilometer
spread. Area includes dry land, icesheets, and bodies of water like the Great Lakes and Russia's vast Lake Baikal. Once we'd gathered our facts, we confirmed them at Britannica.com by looking up articles on the individual countries of Russia and Canada. Tell your dad he's close, but nyet cigar.
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